The art of a carefully crafted sentence with beautiful ink on a crisp page is becoming a rarity. Handwriting day serves to remind us of that skill.
These days we can even create ‘handwriting’ in our electronic documents with cursive fonts. We can Digitally sign documents using a pass-phrase. However, there is still room for a quick hand written posty note, a card or a signature on a document as a stamp of authority.
Storing Handwriting in Cradle
There are a few ways that you could store hand written information in Cradle.
Whether it is a handwritten requirement / letter / alteration from your customer or an authorisation signature, you can store them in Cradle. As part of Change Management you may wish to record a picture of a whiteboard discussion, a snapshot of the back of that envelope or even a scan of the letter sent by a customer.
In this month’s newsletter we asked you to email us when you last “hand wrote a date”. There’s still time to drop us a line and get a mention next month. Or if you really want to practice your writing for handwriting day 2018, drop us a letter.
Happy #ThesaurusDay or Should that be “Convivial greetings to all celebrating alternative onomasticon listings day” ?
In pure terms a list of equivalent words or synonyms helps enrich our language. The thesaurus may list a number of alternatives that are subtly different.
Requirements ambiguity
When writing a requirement we have to be careful that we are unambiguous in both our language and meaning.
Language Construct
“The value displayed shall be the total time expended for each activity of a particular type divided by the count of all activities of each type”. Could be interpreted as A1 2mins, A2 1min, A3 4mins = 7 mins for type A B1 3mins, B2 4mins, B3 8mins, B4 1min = 16 mins for type B
Value to display for A = (7 mins / 7 ) = 7 Value to display for B = (16 mins / 7) = 2.3
or as intended
Value to display for A = (7 mins / 3 ) = 2.3 Value to display for B = (16 mins / 4) = 4
In this case we could have removed the ambiguity by using an equation as a synonym for the language.
Choices in language can mean different things to different people. This is especially true where suppliers and customers work in different fields. The Customer’s Requirement is their end goal, for the supplier it is the starting point. The Customer asks that the “After the office upgrade and IT installation users should have a clear desk”. Maybe unhindered or unobstructed would have served better?
Clear Desk – What was envisaged & what was delivered
Stay SMART(U)
So to celebrate thesaurus day 2018 : Do your best to keep your requirements Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound. Oh and of course Unambiguous, but rich with language.
Saudações da temporada, Feliz Natal,节日祝福, Prettige Feestdagen, Joyeuses Fêtes, Frohe Festtage, 계절의 인사, С Новым годом и Рождеством, Cyfarchion y Tymor
However you celebrate the end of 2017, 3SL would like to wish all its customers, potential customers, distributors, partners and staff, Season’s Greetings, a Happy Christmas and peaceful family times over the festive season. We’ll see you again in the new year.
The UK offices will be closed from close of business on Friday 22nd December to 2nd January 2018. There will be no one manning the phones. You can send support enquiries to support@threesl.com and we’ll deal with them as soon as we can.
Watch this space for updates during our 30th Birthday Year……..
Happy Birthday!
Happy 30th
Thank you to all our loyal customers and friends past and present. We’re proud to have been of assistance in your projects.
Thank you too to all the staff who over the years have changed Cradle into the multi module full lifecycle suite it is today.
Mark Walker founder and Managing Director of 3SL said:
“I am delighted with the success of Cradle and the way 3SL has been able to develop a tool that has influenced and supported so many projects world wide”
Structured Software Systems Limited’s official start date was 1st December 1987 and trades under the catchier moniker 3SL.
Leonardo of Pisa, or as we know him Fibonacci, spotted a magical pattern in the early 1200.
Fn = F(n-1) + F(n-2) where F0 = 0 and F1 = 1 or F1 = 1 and F2 = 1 as a seed.
To celebrate Fibonacci Day 2017 and this most import sequence, found in nature, mathematics and the basis for the Golden Ratio, we’ve recreated a sequence in Cradle.
Using an integer Category value FibVal and FibRes and a calculation FibCalc. The calculation is set to look at its cross referenced children (a downwards navigation) and compute a sum based on the aggregate total of their FibRes category and its own seed, held in FibVal. The result is assigned to FibRes.
Fibonacci Calculation setup
The first item were created and and seeded with 0. Then another item created and linked to it and seeded with 1. Thereafter new parent items were created and linked to their two previous children (Seed value of 0 just to keep calculation valid) .
Fibonacci Sequence
The screenshot shows the linked items (in the tree on the left). The query view (on the right) shows the values of the saved items and how they add up.
For more information on Calculations in Cradle, visit the online help. Have a go at creating your own sequence to celebrate Fibonacci Day 2017.
Described by www.worldhelloday.org/ as a demonstration of the importance in communication for the preservation of peace, we can all do our little bit to get along.
Hello from 3SL
Say ‘Hello’
Hello, 你好, Hallo, Bonjour, 여보세요, Здравствуйте, Helo to our distributors and customers.
Whichever language you use, ‘Hello’ is a greeting, a sign of friendship, tolerance, and respect. Thought to derive from a ‘holla or hollo’ used to attract attention back as far as the 14th century, it has always been used as a positive greeting, or introduction. Use it as often as you can, form good relationships with your country folk, your neighbour, your customers, suppliers and even your competitors. As Thomas Edison is said to have done, pick up the phone and say “Hello” possibly to a friend or to a customer, or just an acquaintance you’ve not been in touch with for a while. (You could call 3SL on +44(0)1229 838867)
If you would like Cradle in a language not currently translated, don’t hesitate to contact us. SalesDetails@threesl.com
Find ten contacts and just say, “Hello”, “hey there!”, “wassup” or “howdy” you know it makes sense.
X-Rays are a form of electromagnetic radiation or “ray” for short.
When first discovered, these mysterious rays were nothing like anything that had been described before, hence the ‘X’ name has stuck.
X-rays have a wavelength less than 10 nanometres, that is, they are shorter than those of UV, and longer than those of gamma rays. It was aGerman scientist Wilhelm Röntgen often credited with their discovery.
Looking Inside Cradle
Thankfully there is no need to use X-Rays to look inside your Cradle project.
Information once stored can be recalled by Queries and presented in Views or Forms. Output can be directed to HTML or RTF tables, shown graphically as a Hierarchy diagram, explored by clicking links. Formal publishing to Microsoft® Word documents can be achieved through Document Publisher.
In short there is no mystery to your data once inside Cradle unlike our bones, welded joints or airport suitcases you can easily see your data.
Celebrate on X-Ray Day 2017
Celebrate the genius of a very useful tool in the x-ray machine. Whilst we don’t advise you have an x-ray for fun, you could download another useful tool here!
We all use e-mail as a reliable method for our personal and business communications. However, as we all know, vast numbers of spam, junk and malicious e-mails are also sent every day. Everyone needs protection from the damage that clicking a link or attachment in just one e-mail can do. 3SL has recently changed our 3SL email filters to further reduce our exposure to such threat vectors. We expect that you and your organisation also update your filters regularly.
Block Spam and Malicious E-Mails
This blog post is a summary of what the 3SL email filters will do.
We are publishing this so that you can reliably send your emails to us. We do not expect that the 3SL email filters will block any of your emails. But if one of your emails is blocked, this blog post may help to explain why.
Principles of 3SL Email Filters
We will obviously not disclose full details of the 3SL email filters. You would not expect us to do something that silly. There are some general principles which we will publish, which are:
The more malicious an email is, the less likely our mail server is to provide an informative response to the sender, or their mail server
The more malicious an email is, the more likely we are to provide false responses, or no response, to the sending mail server
We use all available blacklists to ignore all known malicious senders and mail relays. Either we access them online, or we keep local copies and then update them regularly.
3SL always reports malicious financial emails to the organisation that they are supposed to come from
We report all malicious e-mails to blacklist sites wherever possible
We automatically block emails based on their from, to, subject, content, formatting and attachments
Any e-mails sent to undisclosed recipients or with multiple from tags will be rejected
We operate our own blacklists, for people we dislike
Emails from people we especially dislike are automatically sent to spam reporting sites
We operate our own whitelists, for people we like!
All e-mails and all of their attachments are scanned for viruses and other nasty tricks(!)
Email Attachments
The types of attachment to an email is an important part of the 3SL email filters. Therefore, the 3SL email filters are very sensitive to the types of files that are attached to e-mails.
We currently block everything that is remotely executable. This includes the obvious ones, such as:
exe files
scr files
msi files
.bat files
.cmd files
.lnk files
.com files
and many others.
We also block file types that are common vehicles for malicious code, including the obvious ones:
.jar files
.ace files
and others that we will keep to ourselves!
In total, we block over 20 file types.
Accepted Attached File Types
We want to receive your e-mails! Therefore, if you need to send any attachments with your e-mail, only send:
Microsoft Office files
Open Office files
PDF files
Plain or rich text files
Cradle import/export files
Simple images
We will detect macros in e-mail attachments. So, please don’t send us any file with a macro inside it!
If you send a file containing a macro, then either your e-mail will be rejected or, if you are in our whitelist – and this includes customers – then your e-mail may be logged as spam, or it may be rejected.
Alternatives to Email for File Exchange
If we need to exchange files with you that would be blocked by our email system, or by yours, there is an alternative!
Every login account in our website can have a file transfer area. You can use this area to download any type of file from us. You can use this area to upload any type of file to us. Therefore, this mechanism avoids any need for us, or you, to send files by e-mail that either of our mail systems would block.
We think that this mechanism is very useful. 3SL asks all of our customers to consider using this mechanism. We hope that you will agree. Therefore:
If you have a login to our website, we can enable this facility for you.
If you do not have a login to our website, please register and create one!
Your organisation may also provide a secure file transfer mechanism. If so, tell us about it. We will be pleased to use it.
Help Us to Help You
Obviously, we never send anything malicious to anyone. Equally obviously, we do not ever knowingly send any emails that could be regarded as spam, malicious or suspicious. So we would be concerned if you do not receive any of our emails.
Therefore, please tell us if you believe that we are sending emails that are being blocked by your mail system.
If this happens, then we will work with you and your IT to either:
Add 3SL to your organisation’s whitelist, and therefore none of our e-mails will ever be blocked
Or we will change the format of our emails so they are acceptable to your organisation
